


Touch the Sky

by scrollgirl



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon Character of Color, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Genderswap, Interracial Relationship, Male-Female Friendship, Pining, Rule 63, girl!Rhodey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:02:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrollgirl/pseuds/scrollgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie Rhodes wouldn't be who she is today without her friendship with Tony Stark. The flip side of that is Tony Stark wouldn't be Iron Man without the twenty-five years he's been in love with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch the Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PhoenixFalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFalls/gifts).



> [](http://phoenixfalls.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://phoenixfalls.livejournal.com)**[phoenixfalls](http://phoenixfalls.livejournal.com)** ' sign-up included: "...though I don't as a rule like gender-swapped stories, I'd love to see always-a-girl!Rhodey." Well, I couldn't resist the opportunity to write a genderswapped Rhodey, not to mention Tony/Rhodey, so I hope this story worked for you!

The year is 1985 and Rhodey doesn't exist yet. She's a freshman at MIT and she still thinks of herself as Jamie—Jamie Rhodes from South Philly, a cadet on scholarship with the Air Force ROTC. Rhodey only begins crawling out of the primordial soup that October when her physics professor invites Jamie to watch the shuttle launch with the engineering club that he sponsors. The biggest television she's ever seen is set up in a classroom in the Eastman Laboratories, plastic chairs in a semi-circle around it.

The crowd is comprised entirely of awkward science nerds and while Jamie's not sure she'll ever have anything in common with these guys except a love of NASA rockets, she is determined to make a space for herself here. They'll accept her as an equal or she'll give them a reason why. Still, they're strangers that day and she finds a seat next to the Stark kid mostly because he's the smallest of the bunch, easily the least intimidating person in the room.

Twenty-five years later, Rhodey will watch the guy singlehandedly take on terrorist organizations and the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, and she will _miss_ that skinny kid who smiled so shyly at her.

Tony is a bundle of insecurities and hormones, but weirdly charming even with his rich white kid problems. It's obvious from the get-go that he has a massive crush on her, but Rhodey ignores the flirting and sweaty palms, just treats him like a younger brother until he finally settles down. Maybe she would have dated him if he'd been a little older, but while she's a freshman at seventeen after skipping the third grade, Tony is a sophomore at fifteen after skipping... elementary school, basically. It doesn't seem right to get his hopes up.

"School's actually _fun_ for the first time in my life," he tells her one night while they're studying in his dorm room. They've left the door open so that Hans, who lives across the hall, can keep an eye on them. Hans, as Rhodey learns after a few months, is actually Tony's bodyguard and not his resident advisor. "They're already talking to me about whether I want to do my first doctorate here."

Rhodey wrinkles her nose. "You couldn't pay me enough money to do a PhD. Undergrad's fine and I might have to do a master's at some point, but I'd rather shoot myself in the head than be an academic. I want to actually _do_ something with my life."

"Do you think you'll really get to fly a Nighthawk?" Tony hasn't become the jaded asshole he'll be in ten or fifteen years, so he asks this with genuine interest, not a hint of scepticism. He gazes at her adoringly, like she's as good as a fighter pilot already and therefore the coolest person on the planet.

"Oh, totally, all kinds of fighters. But what I really want is to be the first black woman in space." She straightens her spine almost unconsciously, chin going up. "Once I'm trained and get enough experience in the cockpit, I'm applying to NASA to be an astronaut."

"That would be so awesome," Tony whispers, wide-eyed. "I could get a job with NASA too and we'd be a team, like, I'd be the engineer who builds the space shuttle and you'd be the pilot who flies it to, to _Jupiter_. Or, uh, I guess Mars is more realistic? So phase one is Mars, but phase two is _definitely_ Jupiter."

"Gotta aim high," Rhodey agrees, high-fiving him. Deciding they need better tunes to get themselves into study mode, she pulls out Tony's box of cassette tapes from under his bed. "I know you have the soundtrack for _2001: A Space Odyssey_ in here somewhere..." She sorts through the collection, considers and then discards _Space Oddity_ , and finally comes up with a real treasure. "You made a mixed-tape of _Star Trek_ music?" she asks, laughing, warm with affection for this boy. "Wow, you are _such_ a dweeb."

Tony ducks his head, blushing, but he pops the tape into the deck when she tosses it over, and Rhodey finishes her calculus assignment to the sounds of the _U.S.S. Enterprise_ warping through space.

*

This is how their friendship works:

Rhodey loves the F-15E Strike Eagle. It's bold, sturdy, yet versatile, and not the least bit afraid to reach out and touch someone... or blow them to kingdom come. It's the bird she flies when the U.S. invades Iraq, and once they capture Saddam International, she basically makes a home in that cockpit as she flies mission after mission, trying to quell insurgent activity. She carefully tracks her successes and failures, and says a prayer every night for her victims and for her fallen comrades. Tony emails often, most of them short, one-sentence messages that appear in her inbox at all hours of the day, a stream of consciousness to rival James Joyce for inanity, if not length. He never waits for a reply, which is just as well because Rhodey is too exhausted and heartsick to correspond in any consistent manner.

Whenever there are American casualties, Tony's emails spike in numbers before trailing off after three or four days. Stark Industries quickly produces a more effective unmanned drone: faster response time, better targeting, greater manoeuvrability, and way more ka-boom in its missiles. Rhodey's not a big fan of UAVs. They're disposable in a way people aren't, but they're merely blunt instruments for all their technological sophistication. A UAV doesn't have a pilot's instinct or judgment, that indefinable human element that's essential to understanding the nuances of a violent situation and knowing when and where to strike to achieve the optimal outcome. Still, she appreciates the sentiment and thanks Tony with a photo of her boobs. He emails back a photo of his dick.

Seven months later, Rhodey's hit by a surface-to-air missile while flying over Tikrit. She manages to bring her plane down in a controlled crash and gets rescued by friendlies before insurgents can capture her or finish the job. Lucky, but not so lucky that she escapes without injury. Besides the concussion, contusions, fractured ribs, and compound fracture of her left femur, there are hairline fractures in her L1 and L2 vertebrae that scared her shitless until the doctor explained she wouldn't need surgery.

Honestly, it could have been a hell of a lot worse and at least she gets medical leave to go home.

"You really didn't need to come get me," she tells Happy when he meets her at the airfield. Happy shrugs and grins, hefts her pack over one shoulder and takes over from the airman pushing her wheelchair. There's a sleek black limo in the parking lot, incongruous amongst the four-door sedans and pickup trucks, and there's a billionaire playboy waiting in the backseat, gorgeous in a Valentino suit. The fact that Rhodey recognizes the designer speaks to the many small ways her friendship with this man has shaped her life.

"Hey, babydoll, welcome back to civilization," he murmurs, giving her a gentle hug.

"Don't call me babydoll," she says without heat, and when he tries to pull back, clings to him and buries her face in his neck. Even with the back brace, the position twists her torso beyond her tolerances and a spike of pain shoots through her body. Tony makes a noise of distress as though he can feel what she feels. Heedlessly wrinkling his suit, he kneels on the floor of the limo and gently eases her down until she's lying supine on the backseat. He stays on his knees, hovering over her, his fingertips lightly tracing over her face—down her nose, following the curve of her bottom lip, smoothing up her cheekbones until they settle at her pounding temples where they massage in circles. He whispers nonsense in her ear, that she's safe and she's fine, a little busted up but nothing that can't be fixed, and that he's going to take such good care of her.

Tony's idea of friendship means there's a promotion waiting for her when she's healed up, and a transfer to the Air Force Test Center at Edwards.

"You're not even trying to be subtle, are you," she says over instant messenger. She's in her mother's house in Philly, visiting the family before she reports to Fort McNair next week for a meeting with her thesis supervisor. Technically her promotion isn't contingent on completing a master's degree, but Rhodey wasn't born yesterday. "It's my career, asshole," she adds when Tony doesn't immediately reply. "I don't need you pulling strings."

Tony's IM profile pic suddenly becomes animated, winking lewdly and growing a cartoon body, naked except for a red thong covering an obscene bulge. "Fuck subtlety. You got blown out of the sky, dewdrop, you don't get a vote." Tony's cartoon body starts gyrating across the screen.

"Jamie Roberta Rhodes, what in God's name are you doing to my computer!" her mother cries, having walked up behind her without Rhodey noticing.

Rhodey's mother loves Tony and disapproves of him in equal force and measure, and once she gets started on why that boy needs to settle his ass down already and have some babies, they'll be here for days. It's never worth the effort to explain Tony's humour, so Rhodey shuts down the computer and distracts her mother by asking for a curry recipe. This tactic succeeds mostly because Rhodey is a terrible cook and her whole family despairs of how much take-out she eats. Her mother orders her into the kitchen for a cooking lesson and she chalks this up to another one that Tony owes her.

In the end she accepts the promotion because she's about due for it anyway and because turning down a promotion or a transfer—or both, since they usually come hand in hand—would send the wrong signal to the Air Force. Rhodey has no intention of resigning. But Tony's highhandedness continues to stick in her craw until Nana informs her that she's got lymphoma and needs aggressive chemotherapy. After that, she stops complaining about losing the skies and spends the time with her sick grandmother instead. Rhodey keeps blocking Tony's IM for a good six months, though, because nobody needs to see that shit.

*

People ask where you were during the Battle of New York the same way they ask where you were during 9/11, or the way Rhodey's mother's generation would ask where you were when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. People don't ask Rhodey where she was unless they don't recognize her, which so far has only happened with white people.

Two days before the Battle of New York, Rhodey is in Islamabad with a Pentagon negotiation team that's trying to convince Pakistan to reopen its borders to NATO supply convoys. It's important work but not more so than the priority call Rhodey gets from the joint chiefs with orders to get her shiny metal ass back to Washington, D.C. Thankfully her role in these negotiations was to reassure the Pakistani government that War Machine's targeting capabilities would prevent any future incidents of friendly fire—it means she already has the suit close at hand.

Rhodey blasts off westwards and spends the long commute getting fully briefed on—Norse gods? Seriously? And they come from outer space? She takes a moment to absorb the fact that science fiction has become reality. That they are not alone in the universe. Rhodey's always figured there had to be alien life out there, but she never imagined that she'd be alive to see it make first contact, let alone invade Earth.

The casualty list from the attack in Nevada is a hell of a lot easier to wrap her head around, though harder to stomach: over a hundred people injured, thirty-nine confirmed dead, though the body count will likely be double that by the time they've finished digging through the rubble for survivors. There's satellite imagery of a crater in the desert, all that's left of a classified research facility. Intel on this Loki guy is sketchy at best and draws on Norse mythology more heavily than Rhodey would like. Loki's next target is anyone's guess, but even four star generals have seen _Independence Day_. It's practically a sci-fi tradition to attack the White House in the first wave of an alien invasion, which means War Machine needs to be on hand to protect the president.

Rhodey is halfway over the North Atlantic, the setting sun streaking the horizon orange-pink, when Jocasta informs her of an incoming call from Mr. Stark. War Machine's AI is an offshoot of Jarvis' programming, but instead of a man's British accent, Jocasta has a woman's low alto and a strong Philly accent that Rhodey suspects is based on her mother's voice. Every time Jocasta warns her not to push War Machine beyond established tolerance levels, Rhodey has a child's instinct to obey.

She answers Tony's phone call, aiming for a casual, "Hey, what's up?"

"Nothing much, just the price of gold, gas, and—no surprise here—SI's stock." Tony's rapid-fire greeting doesn't quite mask the tension in his tone, not to someone who knows him as well as Rhodey does. It's not fear so much as excitement, because he's as much of an adrenaline junkie as she is, and the heavy breathing tells Rhodey that he's in the Iron Man suit. "What's new with you, sugar cube? Aren't you supposed to be in Pakistan right now? Why aren't you in Pakistan?"

Rhodey tries to convince herself that the stalking is charming and not a national security concern, really. "Did you know you can't get decent Chinese take-out in Islamabad? I'm just swinging by D.C. to pick up some moo shu pork for the team. What are you up to?" 

"Me? Oh, I'm off to Germany for a quickie. Hey, Pepper's in D.C. right now, she headed out last night. You should give her a call, you ladies could meet up for dinner, get some girl-talk in. That's gotta be more fun than making nice with Pakistan, am I right?"

Rhodey had forgotten that Pepper was meeting with one of the Energy and Commerce subcommittees this week. If an alien invasion is a credible threat, the last place Pepper should be is in the vicinity of high-value targets like, say, anyone in the presidential line of succession.

She debates with herself for a minute, then takes a gamble that Tony's security clearance hasn't been revoked since the last time SHIELD was sniffing around him. "I've been studying up on pagan religions lately..." If Tony knows about the attack on the Nevada facility, that should be more than enough to confirm. If he hasn't been read in, well, Rhodey can't feel guilty for tipping off a man who routinely hacks the Pentagon for fun.

"Loki, Tesseract, big hole in the ground, yup, I'm all caught up. I'm heading over there to take care of him right now, as a matter of fact."

It takes a second to penetrate, then Rhodey snaps out, "Where? How? By yourself? Don't be a fucking idiot, Tony, this is an extremely dangerous hostile that's already killed thirty-nine people and destroyed an entire base within minutes. Give me your coordinates, I'll come back you up."

"You've got your orders, sweet-cheeks, don't worry your pretty head about me. Anyway, I've got Captain Tight-Ass playing Robin to my Batman. SHIELD sent him and Romanoff in first—it's almost like they don't trust me to get the job done, Rhodey, which is _hurtful_ , let me tell you."

Captain Tight-Ass? "If Malcolm Reynolds is your back-up, I wanna know what the hell you've been smoking and why you aren't sharing."

"Ha! Not even close. C'mon, get your references right, cocoa puffs. Nah, I'm talking about Dad's mad science project. Big, blond, and defrosted. Here, catch—"

Jarvis sends a data burst to Jocasta and when Rhodey opens the top file, she whistles low and long. "The fuck, Tony. That's _Captain America_."

"Why is there awe in your voice," Tony grumbles. "Seriously, he stopped being cool when we were ten. Plus, I'll bet the freezer burn's killed most of his brain cells and you can't hero-worship a guy with freezer-burned brains, Rhodey, it's un-American."

"Quit frontin' like I ain't seen your comic book collection," she scoffs. Captain America, back from the dead and prettier than ever. And deadlier too, based on what little Rhodey can read of his redacted service record. If War Machine can't be there to watch Tony's back, then there's probably nobody better suited for the job of keeping Tony in one piece than the World War II hero who sacrificed himself to save the entire eastern seaboard.

The thing is, Tony _can_ take care of himself. He's proved it with Iron Man, that he doesn't need her to mother him like they were still snot-nosed brats at MIT, like she did when his parents were killed in the car crash, or when Stone got him and Rumiko so messed up on heroin. Tony doesn't need her like he did before Afghanistan, but Rhodey can't stop reminding him that he doesn't have to do this alone. She can only hope Captain America will have an easier time getting through to him.

"When I get to D.C.," she says after skimming the rest of Tony's data packet, "I'm putting Pepper on a plane to California." She can't tell Tony that the president has taken the Navy and Air Force to DEFCON 3, but this thing with Loki can only get worse before it gets better and Rhodey would never forgive herself if she didn't get Pepper to safety.

Tony doesn't object, just adds, "Make that Colorado, the bunker in the Rockies. I've stocked it with enough survivalist crap to last her into the next century."

War Machine and Iron Man pass each other on skewed trajectories in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, their paths approaching but never meeting. The channel stays open between them and they spend the flight idly debating the relative hotness of Boomer versus Athena.

*

She's cold. Rhodey knew, intellectually, that space would be cold, but she never imagined how that cold would feel, how it would sink deep into her bones and hook icy fingers into her mind, turning all thought, all movement painful and sluggish. The alien warship fills her view screen, its power levels literally off the charts on her HUD. But War Machine's HUD flickers and darkens, Tony's image vanishing as the faltering palladium arc reactor finally, quietly dies. She spares a moment to regret that Tony wouldn't upgrade her suit with that new element—maybe then she wouldn't be alone in this moment, without even Jocasta to stay with her.

Earth's gravity pulls at War Machine even through the wormhole, but the missile stays true to the course she's set. It explodes on impact, blasting apart the alien ship until Rhodey's blind with the red-white fire of a mushroom cloud. Let there be light.

Her eyes close and her last thought is that Tony's going to be really, really drunk at her funeral.

*

"Rhodey, Rhodey, baby, _please_. Come on, breathe, Rhodey, you gotta breathe for me, okay? Please?" She hears him calling her from far away, his voice muffled as through a closed door, and she turns to find him because she'll never not come when he calls so long as she has breath in her body.

She breathes in, out, her lungs burning, and returns to herself, to bright sunshine, clear blue skies, broken skyscrapers, the smell of blood and sweat and scorched metal. No aliens, no warships, no inferno raging to consume her, no lonely grave among the stars. Only Tony's dark eyes staring down at her fearfully.

"Rhodey?"

Rhodey blinks up at him in a daze. "D'you just kiss me?"

Tony's entire body seems to deflate like a flatulating balloon, which is a weird visual considering he's still in the Iron Man suit and while it's sparking with damage, dented and scraped and smeared with weapons' residue and a bit of blood, it's still armour-shaped and not limp like a used condom and— Okay, it's possible Rhodey has a head injury, because what on earth is she even talking about?

"You, you lie still, okay? Jarvis is scanning your thick skull for brain damage, you fucking wacko, did you seriously just _fly a nuke into outer space?_ "

A red gloved hand comes gently down on Tony's shoulder and pulls him back so he's not yelling directly into her ear. Captain America peers down at Rhodey, smiling warmly. "You were amazing, Colonel. You saved us all."

"You mean... it's over? We won?" When the president had ordered Rhodey to break off escorting Air Force One and get to New York at her best possible speed, she'd nearly wept in gratitude. She never would have forsaken the duty she owed to her commander-in-chief, but every instinct had screamed at her to join the battle. To get to Tony and protect him, watch his back, keep him safe. But not for a moment had she believed they'd have a chance of actually _winning_.

Rhodey struggles to sit up and realizes she's out of the War Machine suit—Tony must have used the manual releases so he could do CPR. She leans on Captain America, aching and woozy and feeling slightly damsel-in-distress-ish with the super-soldier's arm around her shoulders. Still, Rhodey is far less injured than she expected to be—but then the ground shakes and for a moment she's thinks it's vertigo until an enormous green face appears over her shoulder and scares the bejeezus out of her. "Holy shit! Um..."

"Easy, big guy, easy," Tony says quickly, putting himself between her and the Hulk. "No, it's fine, Rhodey, he's not going to hurt you. He broke our fall—I tried to kill your acceleration but my thrusters were completely shot and the flaps weren't slowing us down enough. We were gonna be a stain on the sidewalk if Hulk hadn't caught us."

Rhodey stares up at the big scary monster that looked about ready to chow down. "Uh, sure, thanks for the save, big guy." The Hulk grunts and settles back on his haunches, allows Captain America to pull Rhodey to her feet over Tony's protests. "Cut it out, you big baby, I'm _fine_. Jarvis, tell him I'm fine."

"Colonel Rhodes is suffering a concussion and mild hypothermia," says Jarvis, audible from within Tony's suit.

"Hell, that's practically nothing," huffs Rhodey, certain that she's won something even as Tony turns practically maroon and growls, " _Nuke_. Into _space_."

"Friends," Thor interrupts. His expression is sombre as he looks them over and judges their fitness. "We've one last task."

*

After shawarma, Tony invites the Avengers to crash at his penthouse. While there's a Loki-sized dent in the middle of his living room, the place sustained minimal damage in comparison to the surrounding buildings. Grand Central is in pieces at the foot of Stark Tower. Pepper is on her way back from Colorado, using her flight-time to liaise with the mayor's office so that SI engineers can begin diverting power from the Tower's arc reactor to the city's electrical grid, giving priority to nearby hospitals and emergency shelters, and to the FEMA teams doing body recovery and identification in what's left of midtown Manhattan.

"Pick a guest room, any guest room. Pick 'em all if you want, I don't care. Hmm, clothes... Thor, Steve, I don't have anything in your size. Jarvis, get someone to bring them clothes. Banner, Barton, take what you want from my closet. Natasha, try Pepper's closet. Towels are... Where the hell did I put the towels? Jarvis, where'd I put the towels?"

"Sir, towels have been provided in each of the guest baths. Extra towels are available in the linen closet."

Rhodey gets a hand on Tony's arm and drags him to a stop. "Hey, relax. They're grown-ups, they can figure out where the towels are at."

"That, that's a reasonable... Oh, wait, sheets. What if they need more sheets?"

It's more than a little disconcerting to see Tony excited about other people. She thinks back to the stripper poles and the hot sake, that plane ride before Afghanistan, how she'd drunkenly explained to Tony what she sees in the mirror every time she puts on the uniform. How she _knows_ , in her heart, that every person who wears that same uniform has her back. What it means to have a team, brothers and sisters-in-arms. Thor's cape and the Stars and Stripes are kind of flashy as uniforms go, but then Tony's never really done subtle anyway.

Groaning, her thoughts too deep for the number of bruises she's got covering her body, Rhodey heads for the master bedroom and leaves Tony to his hosting duties. The best thing about any house belonging to Tony Stark is that there's always _fantastic_ water pressure. She uses the shampoo for kinky hair that Tony keeps for her, then spends twenty minutes just letting the pulsing spray massage her aching muscles, nearly dozing off a couple of times until Jarvis rouses her. How embarrassing would that be, to make it through battle with minimal injuries only to crack her head open slipping in the shower.

She puts in leave-in conditioner and finally turns off the water. The towels are truly spectacular, and Iron Man-red because Tony Stark, that's why. Tony comes into the bathroom while she's still naked and pulls her into a fierce hug. He doesn't say a word and she pretends not to hear him sniffle. "Get in the shower, will you," she murmurs into his shoulder. "You smell like a men's locker room."

Tony smiles at her, a shy smile that she hasn't seen in a dog's age, and goes to shower. Rhodey dozes, waiting, curled up on Egyptian cotton sheets that feel like silk against her naked skin. She has an idea of how this night will end and putting on pyjamas seems like too much effort when she'll have to be naked again later. Hell, at this point she's too exhausted to even wonder why—why she's finally ready to say yes tonight when she's said no for twenty-five years.

"Darling," he whispers, sliding into bed behind her, spooning close and wrapping an arm around her waist. He's already hard, his cock thick and sticky with pre-come against the back of her thigh. "Tell me we're doing this..."

She draws him close, turns her head to kiss him deeply, giving him everything he's asking for. The goatee tickles her skin. "Yeah, Tony," she says, her fingertips ruffling his bangs. "You're gonna have to do all the work, though. I'm half falling asleep here."

Tony's expression is agonized, which Rhodey finds distantly hilarious because he's clearly trying to be a gentleman even with his dick poking her in the ass. "We don't _have_ to have sex..."

Rhodey rolls onto her belly and spreads her legs, wriggles until he's nestled up against her back. "Shut up, yes we do. You need this, and I want it, so just do it already. Give it to me hard, Tony—" He grunts, hips stuttering forward like his body's not quite in his control. "Yeah, see? I know you too well, Tony. I know how you want it."

It's not quite dirty talk, she's not trying to be sexy, but it's pretty obvious Tony's turned on as hell. He gets a hand under her, gets his fingers on her clit and starts working her over, just the right amount of sweet pressure to pull a moan from her lips.

"Fuck, Rhodey, I want you, I want you so bad," he pants, his cock rubbing against her labia and spreading more and more wetness until the everything's slick and messy. She's writhing against his hand now, and when he pushes a finger into her vagina, she tightens and shudders around it. 

"Oh, God, condom. Wait, wait, I need a condom." Rhodey's face is turned to one side, her cheek on a pillow that smells like Tony's cologne. She watches him fumble for a condom, then hears the rip of packaging and his soft gasp as he rolls it on. "I'm gonna fuck you, okay? Is that okay? Please say yes, I've wanted to fuck you since I was, like, fifteen and fighting acne—"

"Oh my God, Tony, just do it already," she groaned. "Fuck me, I want you to, I'm saying yes. This is me saying _yes_."

Tony chokes on a laugh and he gets Rhodey onto her knees, ass in the air, just the right height so he can enter her, slow and steady, spreading her open with his thick cock. "Shit, you're tight. I didn't stretch you enough."

But Rhodey's feeling no pain, just waves of aching pleasure. It's _good_ , really good, it's everything she's secretly wondered about her best friend, the international playboy. He knows exactly how to use his cock to massage her G-spot, grinding there until her orgasm begins swelling over her, unstoppable. " _Tony_ , oh God, yeah, yeah, fuckfuck _fuck_."

The arc reactor is a little uncomfortable when Tony collapses momentarily against her back. She shivers when he nips at the fleshy lobe of her ear, his breath hot and wet. "Hold on, gorgeous, that was only round one." He hasn't come yet but he pulls out, careful of the condom, rolls her onto her back so he can start eating her out like he's been starving for years. Rhodey moans, tossing her head on the pillows and arching her back. He gets her clit between his lips and sucks gently, gently, tongue sweeping over the hard flesh until she bucks and writhes so hard that he has to pin her down. "Yeah, that's it," he says breathlessly, lifting his head from between her thighs and using his hands instead to drive her crazy. His thumb is relentless on her clit, three fingers are deep in her cunt, and he stretches up the other hand to play with her tits. "You like that? Want me to pinch 'em? You like it rough, I know you do, I've seen your porn stash."

"Tony, _Tony_ —!" She climaxes with a shout when he twists a nipple between his fingers.

"Fucking gorgeous. Jamie Rhodes, you are that wet dream I've never stopped having, I swear to God. Stick with me, beautiful, I'm gonna make you feel _so_ good."

"Mmm, I can't any more. Seriously, c'mon, I'm _tired_ ," she whines when he climbs on top of her to begin round three, like he's trying to squeeze as many positions as possible into one night of sex—probably because Tony thinks she's only giving him the one chance to do this. "Save some for tomorrow, hotshot."

"Yeah?" He gazes down at her with a tentativeness that breaks her heart. "You mean that?"

Rhodey quirks an eyebrow at him. "We've known each other for two-thirds of our lives, pretty boy. Have you ever seen me have casual sex?" She can practically see the cogs in his brain turning as he considers this.

"Okay, fair point." But then he smirks, handsome as the devil and twice as sinful. Her mama always warned her about boys like him. "Doesn't mean we can't still get you to scream my name one more time." He pushes her thighs up until she's practically folded in half, her quads burning and her cunt just ready and waiting for him to fuck. "Gonna scream again, gorgeous?"

"Screw you, that wasn't a scream." There's not much force behind her protest, though, because she wants it bad, she's needy for it and he knows it. Her cunt keeps clenching down on nothing, missing his cock. She'd fought against adding sex to their relationship for so long because it was the final frontier, that one last uncharted territory, and finally sleeping together would mean no more secrets, no more walls keeping them separate. But the truth is, there were never any secrets left to keep, not with their history, not with all the lines they've crossed already, and how fiercely he loves her and how vulnerable she is to him.

"C'mon, honeybear, give me what I want..." Tony's cock slides in deep and true until he bottoms out. She's going to be a walking ache tomorrow, but right now she doesn't care, can't think beyond getting Tony to fuck her into the mattress.

She rolls her hips up and feels him shudder, his hips snapping forward instinctively. "Move your ass, superhero," she orders, and gets her hands on his ass to pull him in tight. Tony's eyes are dark with lust, the brown irises a thin rim around blown pupils. He bends to capture her mouth, kissing her breathless and dizzy, and they move together, thrusting in perfect rhythm, driving each other closer and closer to climax. He comes first, sobbing her name, unable to hold on against the relentless squeeze of her cunt walls, but he still gropes between them with trembling fingers to tug on her nipples and roll her clit until she's gasping and coming so hard that she sees stars.

"Made you scream," she mutters into a pillow when she finally stops quivering from the aftershocks. She squints and there's just enough light from the arc reactor and the mostly polarized windows for her to see Tony turn pink in the cheeks. "Or wasn't this a competition?"

"Whatever, I'm still winning."

*

He wakes up to an empty bed and for a moment he lies there, a cold stone in his gut. He knows, of course he knows that Rhodey came to her senses in the middle of the night, that she crept away while she could still escape. It's pretty much what he expected would happen. It's why he never made a move before yesterday.

They were never meant to be lovers. They're friends, best friends, but she'll never want what he wants. Tony's been in love with Rhodey for as long as he's known her, since they were babies at MIT, post-pubescent children beginning to explore the big bad world. He's spent Christmas with her family in her tiny apartment in Philadelphia, rebelling against his own parents who wanted him to attend all the right holiday parties, shake hands with all the right people. Rhodey's cousins used to joke that he was Rhodey's brother from another mother, though it stopped being funny after the car crash and became actively painful when a decade had passed and Tony still hadn't stopped being in love with her.

"You're brooding." Rhodey steps out of the walk-in closet, one of his white muscle shirts on over Pepper's yoga pants.

Tony sits up, shocked, hope leaping in his chest at the sight of her. He's too overwhelmed by the reprieve to try hiding his emotions, though it's not like he didn't already feelings-vomit all over her last night, like he hasn't worn his heart on his sleeve for decades. "You're still here."

The smile she gives him is exasperated but warm, and she crawls over the covers to straddle his lap. "Sweetie, I don't know if you've wiped this from your memory banks, but you have literally sat on my face and farted so many occasions that I've lost count. You've had an orgy in my bed and didn't wash the sheets. You crashed my car twice, you fucked my ex-boyfriend, drunk-dialled me while I was in a briefing with a four-star general, accidentally emailed porn to my Nana, and snail-mailed me sex toys while I was in Iraq. That's just off the top of my head. I spent our twenties keeping you from dying of an overdose. I learned the hard way that pulmonary aspiration was a real thing. My name and reputation were dragged through the tabloids, my family harassed by paparazzi, because the only reason Tony Stark would hang around a black woman was because she was a convenient hole for you to stick your dick in."

" _Rhodey_." Cringing, he moves to slide out from under her, but she cups both palms around his face and refuses to let him escape.

"Shh, listen to me, I'm making a point here." She leans in to kiss him softly on the mouth, on the forehead, a tender benediction. "You also gave me weapons to keep me safe, gave me _War Machine_ , for which you have my undying love and gratitude. You took me to see _The Voyage Home_ eight times in the first week alone, you built my mother a custom-designed house, hired a lawyer so my cousin wouldn't lose her kids, held my hand when my Nana died, fed me soup when I had the flu, kept me company when I couldn't sleep for the nightmares, and basically ruined the career of that asshole who tried to—"

Tony hasn't forgotten him. The anger still burns hot against that son-of-a-bitch, even after all these years. "I also ruined his credit score. Would have rather cut off his dick."

Rhodey gently cuffs the back of his head. "And as I've said before, I had that part handled already." She kisses him again, her tongue slipping into his mouth to tangle with his until they're both breathing hard and turned on. "I'm sorry you've had to wait so long for me," she whispers. "I wasn't ready until now. But you need to stop expecting me to leave, okay? Because I've proved over and over that I won't walk away from you, Tony Stark. I can't."

"You stopped _breathing_." The memory haunts him, her body slack and unmoving on the asphalt. He grips the back of her neck, presses their foreheads together, so close that they're breathing the same air. "You flew a nuke into space and I couldn't stop you, couldn't catch you, and when I got the suit to open up, you were—dead. You were dead and I was too late." He shudders helplessly.

If Rhodey promises right here, right now, that she'll never die, that he'll never experience the pain of losing her, Tony will believe her. It will be a lie, but he'll cling to that promise with every fibre of his being. "Given your track record these last couple of years, there's a distinct possibility that you'll piss off the wrong supervillain and get killed first," she says after a minute, lips twisting in a grimace. "I'll be left behind to mourn, and to comfort myself with my completely unexpected inheritance."

Maybe it's perverse, but Tony feels better already. "Oh, you sweet talker, you," he murmurs, rolling her over to start another round.

**Author's Note:**

> ETA: I wanted to note that, IM3 canon aside, the president in this AU is President Obama. Also, my headcanon is that Michelle Obama and Rhodey are totally girlfriends.
> 
> ETA2: ~~Okay, I've gone back and forth on this, and I've decided that MCU!Rhodey is from west Philadelphia, not south Philadelphia like in the comics. Since the movies haven't given us any canon on this (and probably never will), I've decided to develop my own backstory for him.~~ Never mind! I've gone back to using 616 canon. Rhodey is from south Philly.


End file.
